Part 2: (59K)
10. The Golden Rule
11. The Lord's Supper
12. The Spirit of God Dwelleth in You
13. "In Christ Shall All Be Made Alive"
14. The Second Coming
15. The Old Testament
16. The 'Holy Ghost'
17. The Cross
18. Did Jesus Have an Esoteric School?

In Matthew iii, 11, John the Baptist says: "I
indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh
after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:
he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with Fire."
As some of the English words used here have acquired special doctrinal
significance since they were written, it will be advisable to
give meanings which represent the Greek better in modern English.
The word translated 'repentance' means a change of mind, a reformation
of life, and does not necessarily imply sorrow; the word translated
'Ghost' would better be rendered 'Spirit,' so as to avoid confusion
with the theological conception of the second person of the Trinity.

Remembering that the canonical Gospels are a somewhat haphazard
collection and selection of esoteric teachings, veiled in allegorical
and apparently historical guise, we may expect to find in them
many familiar teachings of the ancient Mysteries, which can easily
be read in their right sense by those with any knowledge of such
teachings; but which at the same time can be interpreted by theologians
to suit the purposes of their religion. And nothing could be clearer
than that we have here a reference to the double birth of man,
and to its ritual symbolism in the ancient initiation ceremonies.
Water is the universal symbol of the material side of nature,
whether cosmic or human; fire is symbolic of spirit. There were
two stages of initiation: the first, by an inferior Teacher, was
the baptism by water, and signified the conferring of knowledge
relating to the material planes. To quote from The Secret
Doctrine, II, 566: "John, a non-initiated ascetic,
can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom than the mysteries
connected with the plane of matter (water being a symbol of it).
His gnosis was that of exoteric and ritualistic dogma,
of dead-letter orthodoxy; while the wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate
of the higher mysteries, would reveal to them, was of a higher
character, for it was the 'FIRE' Wisdom of the true gnosis or
the real spiritual enlightenment."

Turn now to John, iii, where a Jewish rabbi comes
privately to Jesus to ask questions. He wants to know what is
meant by saying that a man must be born again; and is told: "Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." But
can a man enter the womb a second time? asks Nicodemus; and is
answered: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh: and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
Here reference to this twofold initiation is plain enough. The
candidate for high initiation must be a complete man.

H. P. Blavatsky has staunchly championed the Gospels, in her articles
on 'The Esoteric Basis of Christianity,' showing that this medley
of sacred writings yields readily to an obvious interpretation
by anyone able (as Theosophists are) to apply the requisite keys
and disencumber their minds of prejudice. And the texts above
quoted are supported by many others which recount the teachings
and acts of an initiated Teacher of high degree, anxious only
to set the feet of his disciples on the Path which he himself
had followed; but who has been set up on a pedestal and worshipped
from afar as the Second Person in the theological triune God.

No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man
the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
him. -- Matthew, xi, 27

The Gospel according to Matthew, by whomever written or when,
is one of those compilations or manuals of sacred teachings used
by the early Christian Church, and built up around the personality
of one Jesus, about whom little can be ascertained, in much the
same way as Plato builds up his teachings around the personalities
of Socrates and other historical figures. This Gospel contains
many sayings which can be recognised by those who have studied
the mystic sayings in other religions or philosophies, as being
familiar items of the Universal Wisdom-Religion, as taught in
the Schools of the Mysteries. They are the teachings of initiated
Teachers, from whatever source the Christians may have derived
them. They gradually lost their esoteric sense and became transformed
into theological dogmas; but their original meaning is so clear,
and their theological interpretation so forced, that we may safely
leave the truth to vindicate itself before the judgment of the
student.

These words, 'Father' and 'Son,' are well-known terms of the Ancient
Wisdom, and do not refer to individuals; they do not mean the
God of theology and his only son the second person of the Trinity.
We cannot do better than quote the words of H. P. Blavatsky in
The Esoteric Character of the Gospels, not as seeking
to fortify ourselves by an appeal to her authority, but because
they so well express the idea we wish to convey:

The first key that one has to use to unravel the dark secrets
involved in the mystic name of Christ, is the key which unlocked
the door to the ancient mysteries of the primitive Aryans, Sabeans,
and Egyptians. The Gnosis supplanted by the Christian scheme was
universal. It was the echo of the primordial wisdom-religion which
had once been the heirloom of the whole of mankind; and, therefore,
one may truly say that, in its purely metaphysical aspect, the
Spirit of Christ (the divine logos) was present in humanity
from the beginning of it. . . . The author of the Clementine Homilies
is right; the mystery of Christos -- now supposed to have been
taught by Jesus of Nazareth -- was 'identical' with that which
from the first had been communicated 'to those who
were worthy.'

And we are told that these and other words used --

apply to all those who, without being Initiates, strive and succeed,
through personal efforts, to live the life and to attain
the naturally ensuing illumination in blending their personality
-- the 'Son' -- with the 'Father,' their individual divine Spirit,
the God within them. This 'resurrection' can never be
monopolized by the Christians, but is the spiritual birthright
of every human being endowed with soul and spirit, whatever his
religion may be. Such individual is a Christ-man.

Thus, without going into details as to the several human 'principles,'
the broad meaning is clear enough. We have man depicted as a triad:
the man himself, the self-conscious human soul, between his spiritual
Self on the one hand and his passional terrestrial nature on the
other. He achieves his own 'salvation' by conscious and willed
union between the Son and the Father, whereby he becomes master
of the lower powers instead of their slave, and is a full-grown
Man.

Such is the ancient and universal doctrine of salvation by self-conscious
evolution and by initiation into the Sacred Mysteries; such is
the sublime teaching which, in dark ages, has been corrupted into
the dogma of the Vicarious Atonement. These words, 'Son' and 'Father,'
are often found in the Gospels, and their correct interpretation
at once convinces the mind. Allowance however has to be made for
the circumstance that these Gospels were written in times when
beliefs were not settled and when there still survived those hopes
of the speedy coming of a Messiah which so agitated the Hebrew-Christian
world at an earlier date.

There are still some Christians who believe in the 'verbal inspiration'
of the Bible -- that it is the Word of God, to be accepted verbally
and literally, and this in spite of the fact that it has been
translated into many languages, and that our English version teems
with mistranslations. There are others who regard it as merely
a collection of documents, sacred, historical, and otherwise,
recording the beliefs and religions of different people at different
times. And there are many engaged in the effort to arrive at some
adjustment between the claims of criticism on the one hand and
those of religious loyalty on the other. But, if we study the
writings of H. P. Blavatsky on this subject, we shall see that
Theosophists are the true champions of the Bible and the only
ones who can estimate it at its true value. For she tells us that
it is one of the world's esoteric works, a version of the Archaic
Wisdom, hidden behind many veils, and written in the ancient mystery-language.
It is surely a remarkable fact, and one that should make us pause
for thought that this book, along with the similar books belonging
to other religions, should have been put together and preserved
for so many ages intact, to wield so great an influence on mankind.
Especially is this so when we consider that a great deal of it
is not at all of a kind to appeal to the average devout Christian,
to whom indeed such parts as we refer to must be incomprehensible.
The explanation of this historical riddle however becomes simple
when we bear in mind that the members of the great brotherhood
of Masters of Wisdom have the duty of seeing to it that the sacred
knowledge depart not from the earth; and so it is preserved in
the form of the world's various scriptures, which have an exoteric
meaning for the multitude and an esoteric meaning for those who
have the keys to understand the symbolism.

Moses was initiated by the Egyptian sacred hierarchy, and conveyed
what he had learned to the people which he led; but his teachings,
the original faith of the Hebrews, were modified and edited many
times, and turned into an exoteric and national religion by David,
Hezekiah, and others, and later by the Talmudists. There exists
that wonderful system known as the Kabalah, which in so many respects
is identical with the teachings of the Secret Doctrine; but even
the Kabalah does not unlock the full mystery of the esoteric truths
enshrined in the Biblical books.

The story of the creation of the world and of man; of how man
changed from an innocent being into a being endowed with the power
of self-conscious choice, thus becoming capable of good and evil;
the story of the Flood -- these are versions, much corrupted it
is true, of allegories that are universal. The Biblical accounts
were evidently derived from Chaldaea, their nearest neighbor.
The so-called historical books are of the kind so frequent in
ancient records -- half historical, half allegoric. The allegoric
meaning to be conveyed is grafted upon a basis of historical fact,
the parts in the drama being played by personages who actually
existed. The symbolic feature is evident in the list of patriarchs,
with their long lives and their begotten sons; these refer to
cycles of time and also to racial subdivisions. The historical
books form a patchwork of contributions from different writers
at different times; and the Kabalistic methods of interpretation,
including those keys which depend upon finding the numerical values
of words according to the system known as Gematria, [Each letter
in the Hebrew alphabet has a number, and thus the words and names
acquire a numerical value by which their esoteric meanings can
be found.] show that the outer meaning was subordinated to the
inner meaning intended to be conveyed.

The Old Testament also contains the Psalms of David,
Ecclesiastes, the prophetic books, and others, which
seem to the ordinary scholar to be merely specimens of Hebrew
literature; but which also enshrine an esoteric meaning, the key
to which is found by a comparison with the other sacred literatures
of the world. In Ezekiel in particular we can find
the symbolism of the zodiacal signs, the evolution of worlds and
of man, and other familiar things treated in The Secret
Doctrine.

In the New Testament, the Gospels are esoteric books, whose source
is difficult to trace. Considered as historical, they present
great difficulties, as the events they purport to describe lack
confirmation from other sources; and moreover give us but a sorry
picture of Jesus and his mission. He seems like an enthusiastic
young teacher, with high expectations, who tries to carry off
a coup d'état in Jerusalem, and is promptly arrested and
executed by the Roman magistrate with the help of the Jewish authorities.
The character of the sayings and deeds attributed to him shows
that we have here a collection of esoteric documents, manuals
and epitomes, couched in the usual allegoric form, and built around
the person of some teacher with a name more or less like Jesus,
who lived at a much earlier date and about whom little can be
ascertained. By the same unseen guidance to which we alluded above,
these works have been compiled and preserved, so that they have
been handed down as the bible of a racial religion until such
time as people are able to realize their true esoteric value.
That there was an esoteric movement and society behind early Christianity
is shown by the otherwise unaccountable fact that so powerful
and enduring a religion should have followed upon a mission so
paltry as that of Jesus is represented to have been. Paul, in
his epistles, proves himself to be a more or less initiated preacher
of an esoteric gospel based on the idea of the mystic Christ incarnate
in all men, and upon the distinction and interaction of the higher
and lower natures in man. To him the narrative of the Gospels
seems to have been entirely unknown. Finally, the Bible closes
with that remarkable book known as the Revelation of St.
John; and here particularly we see the work of guiding
hands in preserving a work which can have but little meaning for
the ordinary Christian. It is an esoteric manual dealing with
the evolution of worlds and man, belonging to the class of Apocalyptic
literature then current.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul. -- Genesis, ii, 7

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him; male and female created he them. -- Genesis,
i, 26-7

These two passages are from the Creation account, which, as said
in the last chapter of this study, is the same in essentials as
accounts given in other sacred scriptures; but there are differences
in detail among these various accounts, because each one of these
has diverged from its parent source -- the universal Wisdom-Religion
or Secret Doctrine. This Hebrew version is seen, by affinity,
to have been immediately derived from a more ancient Chaldean
version, of which archaeologists have unearthed the records.

There seem here to be two separate accounts of the creation of
man, a fact which must have puzzled some Bible readers, but which
is explained when we remember that man is a threefold being, so
that three, or at least two, distinct creations can be recorded.
In the Bible the two accounts seem to have become transposed,
and it is more logical to begin with that in chapter II. And it
is most important to observe that the Hebrew word translated God
and Lord God is elohim, which is a plural word and in Young's
Biblical Concordance is given as 'God, gods, objects of worship.
In fact it means creative powers and includes a large range of
such beings. To Theosophy, the whole universe consists of living
beings, endowed with intelligence in varying degrees, and all
of them creative each in its own sphere. In the second of the
accounts (which, as said, we take first) the Elohim form man out
of earth and breathe into him the breath of life, making him a
living soul. This represents two stages of creation, physical
and psychic. The word translated 'living soul' is nephesh, the
correct meaning of which is given by Young as 'animal soul.' Next
we find Elohim endowing man with their own likeness (observe the
plural pronouns 'us' and 'our') and thereby rendering him lord
of the other animated creation.

The student of The Secret Doctrine will be aware
of the great importance attached to this ancient teaching of the
dual creation of man. It has been retouched out of the picture
by theological dogmatism; yet here we find it unmistakably, if
in imperfect form, in our own Bible. The early races of mankind
were 'sinless,' knowing not the contrast of good and evil any
more than do the birds that hop and sing; but, like those birds,
they were creatures of habit and lacking in originality. This
state is figured by the Garden of Eden.

God has forbidden Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil, which is in the midst of the Garden; but to
Eve comes the Serpent, and says: "Ye shall not surely die:
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
Man eats of the fruit and becomes enlightened; the result is that
he loses his previous state of innocent but stagnant bliss and
becomes a responsible being. His newly acquired free will leads
him at first away from spirit towards matter; man becomes a pilgrim.
This story is an imperfect version of a cardinal teaching of the
Wisdom-Religion, which is found in fuller form in others of the
world's scriptures. That teaching is that the earlier races of
mankind were 'mindless,' being little more than perfected animals;
but that, in the course of evolution, there came a time when this
mindless man received a quickening impulse from the Manasaputras
or Sons of Mind. These were spiritual beings more highly evolved
than man, but who had themselves been men in an earlier cycle
of evolution. It was their duty to enlighten the nascent mankind
of this present cycle, which they did by lighting up or calling
to light the latent spark of divinity within man; after which
man became an intelligent race endowed with self-conscious mind.
The Serpent in the allegory stands for these Sons of Mind; for
the Serpent is a well-known symbol of Wisdom. Thus the so-called
Fall of Man, though in one sense a fall, was really an inevitable
and natural step forward in his evolution. All this leads on to
the question of man's redemption, about which we must speak later.

We have seen how the gift of self-conscious mind to man changed
him from a state of sinless but unprogressive bliss into the state
of a pilgrim journeying through the path of experiences in the
flesh, so that his communication with his divinity is for awhile
shut off, so that he loses his paradisaical beatitude, but gains
in exchange the power of self-conscious evolution, with the promise
of one day attaining to complete manhood. This last is what is
meant by the word Redemption: man, after his fall, rises again;
but rises by his own aspiration and endeavor. It could never have
been the divine purpose to create a puppet; man was to be endowed
with responsibility -- to be made truly in the likeness of God;
and it is only by exercising these prerogatives that he can fulfill
his glorious destiny.

This doctrine is one of those common to all religions; it is a
tenet of the parent Wisdom-Religion, and, like other such tenets,
is found in the exoteric religions of today in various perverted
and degenerated forms. In John, iii, 16, we read:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.

This can be taken both ways, either as referring to the special
sacrifice of a particular man Jesus, as the Churches teach, or
to the sacrifice of the mystic Christ, the higher self in man,
who, through his attachment to the flesh, loses for awhile his
brightness and freedom, but by that sacrifice eventually achieves
the salvation of the flesh, raising the self of earth up to the
heaven in which the higher self dwells. This latter interpretation
is favored by what precedes the above quotation:

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall
ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even
the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted
up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
eternal life. -- iii, 12-15

It would seem that the writer of this gospel was trying to teach
his hearers a truer understanding of the doctrine than the perverted
one that was more or less prevalent. Turning to Paul, who was
a mystic, and undoubtedly an initiate in some degree of the Pagan
Mysteries, we find the real teaching even more evident. As has
been before remarked, Paul shows no sign of having heard of the
gospel story of the life of Jesus and his crucifixion. It is of
the mystic Christ, incarnate in all men, that he speaks.

Our old man is crucified with him [Christ], that the body of sin
might be destroyed. -- Romans, vi, 6

Seeing that they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,
. . . -- Hebrews, vi, 6

They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections
and lusts. -- Galatians, v, 24

As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
-- Galatians, iii, 27

These are a very few of the numerous passages in which Paul expounds
the subject. It is not easy to define exactly what his doctrine
was, or that of the writer of The Gospel according to St.
John: the original pure teaching must have gone through
stages of gradual transformation and adaptation to particular
times and circumstances. But if we study religions comparatively,
checking what we find in one scripture by what we find in others,
we shall be able to sift out the accidental circumstances and
arrive at the common kernel of truth. The idea of 'sacrifice'
is ancient and universal, meaning both the sacrifice undertaken
out of love, by the higher in order to redeem the lower; and the
sacrifice which the personal man makes of his earthly desires
when he aspires to achieve union with the God within. Christ is
crucified for us, and we crucify our flesh with its affections
and lust. Atonement means making at one, the reconciliation, between
the human and the divine. The important point to bear in mind
in all this is that we should abandon the weak and foolish hope
that we can abrogate our own manly responsibility and secure a
vicarious justification for our faults, instead of reaping what
we have sown and making straight what we have wrought awry. Again,
it is the wrongs we have done to others which should cause us
chief concern and rouse a healthy repugnance against the idea
of evading the debt by a personal pardon. The Christ, the Redeemer,
is in all men, though he may be specially manifested in the great
Teachers who come to humanity in all ages, and whose fate it is
to have their persons rather than their teachings venerated.

We often hear it said that Christianity has never really been
tried, and that we should follow the precepts of Christ rather
than bind ourselves by dogmas and ceremonies like the Pharisees,
whom he condemns for that very thing; but a Theosophist cannot
but be surprised that so little is made after all of these teachings
of Christ, even by those who so strongly advocate our attention
to them. Instead of studying their Bible, they would seem to rely
on a floating idea as to what Christ said, based largely on what
they remember of the Sermon on the Mount. We propose here to direct
attention to what is surely a most important and often mentioned
teaching of Christ -- that indicated by the phrases, 'Kingdom
of God,' and 'Kingdom of Heaven,' -- used alternatively in the
same sense. In Matt. iii, 2, John, the forerunner
of Jesus, says: "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand." But he declares that a greater than he shall come
(see Chapter I, p. 1); and we find Jesus, at iv, 17, making the
same exhortation. In verse 23 Jesus is spoken of as going about
and teaching the 'gospel of the kingdom.' Attainment of the kingdom
is mentioned in chapter v as the reward of the poor in spirit
and the persecuted. Verse 19 of this chapter speaks of men being
lesser or greater in the kingdom, and verse 20 uses the phrase
'enter the kingdom.' In vi, 33, we are bidden to seek first the
kingdom of heaven; xiii, 11, tells of the mysteries of the kingdom,
and verse 52 speaks of being instructed unto the kingdom. In Luke,
xvii, 21, occurs the well-known passage: "Neither shall they
say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is
within you." (The pronoun 'you' is not indefinite but plural.)

Many more passages in which one of these two expressions occurs
might be quoted, but the student may be referred to his Concordance.
It is enough to say that we are left in no doubt as to what the
Teacher, whose teachings are here recorded, meant. He was speaking
of a goal of attainment, open to any man, upon certain conditions,
which he continually specifies. [Lest any reader should quote
texts which refer to the second coming as an actual and impending
political event, we refer them to No. XIV of this series, on 'The
Second Coming of Christ,' where this question is fully dealt with.]
Those conditions are the purification of the heart, by the practice
of altruism, purity, truthfulness, and the other virtues so often
called Christian though common to religions in general. Christians
are never tired of insisting on the need of practising these virtues,
but they surely lose sight of the real purpose in doing so. It
is not merely to atone for sin, escape damnation, achieve everlasting
bliss after death; nor yet is it enough to say that we must endeavor
to be Christ-like in our lives. The one object is too narrow and
personal; the other savors of a barren saintliness. If this gospel
is to save the world, it must be through creating a body of real
disciples, not merely saintly people, but people endowed with
the spiritual gifts which Jesus promises to those who follow in
his footsteps. See Matt., v, 38, "Be ye therefore
perfect"; John, xiv, 12, "He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall he do." In short the Teacher, like all such
Teachers, was pointing out the Path or Way, by following which
every man can unfold the latent spiritual powers within him, fructify
the dormant germ, and attain to the status of one of the world's
Helpers. This is the true sense of following the Christ and entering
into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Mere saintliness, even a life of self-sacrificing philanthropy,
is not sufficient. True, self-forgetfulness, to live to benefit
mankind, is the first step; but what of the other steps? Why is
philanthropy so impotent against the forces of the world? Because
it has neglected to equip itself with knowledge. "I
send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore
wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." (Matt.,
x, 16.) If the realm of knowledge is abandoned by the good, it
will be seized by the evil; and the world will be ruled by the
wisdom that "descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual,
devilish." (James, iii, 15.) But the esoteric
basis of Christianity has been expunged from the canon since the
days of the Gnostic Christians; and naught of Jesus' esoteric
instructions to his disciples in private is to be found in the
Gospels, except such as is veiled in guarded language and symbolism.
The mysteries concerning the structure of man and the structure
of the universe in which he is have been left to the speculations
of a materialistic science, and Christians find themselves but
ill-equipped to combat the menacing forces of a knowledge prostituted
to curiosity or greed.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit
of God dwelleth in you? -- 1 Corinthians, iii, 16

This verse is familiar to Theosophists, as it is often quoted.
It is not advisable to rest a case on the authority of an isolated
text, especially if it has been copied by one writer or speaker
from another without reference to the context. But this text,
as with others which have been quoted in these pages, can be taken
as illustrative of the teachings in which it is found; and a reference
to the context will show that it is not isolated but is amply
supported by what accompanies it. The doctrine of Paul, who is
considered by many to be the real founder of Christianity, is
far more mystical, far nearer to the original Gospel, than the
representative Christianity of later times. As has been said,
the Christ which he preached is the indwelling Christ in every
human heart, the Mediator between God and Man, the Divine-Human
Soul between the Divine and the Human in Man. For Paul our terrestrial
animal nature became linked with the Divine by the influence of
this Christ; and thereby we are enabled to follow the higher and
overcome the lower. Students of Theosophy are aware that, at a
certain stage of evolution, Man acquires the gift of Mind, which
is kindled in him by the aid of certain divine Instructors --
the Manasaputras -- after which, Man becomes like unto
the Gods, having the discernment of good and evil. "Ye are
Christ's: and Christ is God's," he says in verse 23. He warns
us that, if we defile this Temple, we court destruction. He speaks
of himself and his colleagues as "stewards of the mysteries
of God." This reminds us of Jesus' "Kingdom of Heaven,"
which he urges his disciples to enter.

It is very important that Christians should recognise the true
merits of their religion. These teachings of Paul restore the
dignity of human nature, whereas professing Christians have all
too often belittled and slandered human nature. To restore the
dignity of human nature does not however imply self-conceit --
nobody can be more emphatic against that than is Paul himself;
it means faith, faith in oneself, faith in the Divinity
which has been breathed into us, faith in the eternal Divine Spark
from which all beings are sprung.

Pelagius (4th and 5th Centuries A. D.) taught that there was no
original sin in man; for man's Creator would in that case be the
author of evil; that it is man who, by the abuse of his free will,
made sin; that, as there is no original sin, no special salvation
by grace is needed; and that man is his own savior. But Pelagius
was condemned as a heretic, though he did try to save himself
by an awkward compromise on the question of 'grace.' The church
authorities said, If this is true, what becomes of Christ and
his sacrifice, of salvation, of original sin, of divine grace?
What becomes of Christianity itself? they said. And it must be
confessed that, if a formal creed be drawn up defining Christianity
in a way acceptable to the various sects, it will be found to
favor the opponents of Pelagius. But what we are trying to do
now is to get away from these creeds and fathom the kernel of
which they are the husks. Here is a clear issue, as between the
conception of Man as a responsible being, endowed by his divine
birthright with the power both to err and to amend; and Man as
an innately corrupt being, requiring 'grace' and a propitiatory
sacrifice for his redemption.

In this text an appeal is made to the free will of man; and truly
such is the only way in which it is possible to help and teach
man. For any other proposed means of help turns man into a puppet,
without free will, and dependent upon an external power. The Teacher
does not say, Believe in me and I will save you. He says, Save
thyself; and points the way by which this can be done. The guilt
for destroying man's faith in his own divinity rests partly with
himself, for giving way to indolence, and partly with false teachers
who have ministered to that indolence, and have thus offered themselves
as intermediaries between man and God, and dispensers of the grace
which man ought to find in himself. The Jesus of the Gospels says:

These things have I spoken to you, being yet present with you.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. --
John, xiv, 25-26

The word translated 'Comforter' is, in the Greek, Paracletos,
and means one who is called in to help. Remembering that the Father
is not the personalized Deity borrowed from Hebrew monotheism,
but the Universal Spirit which animates every being in the universe,
from man down to the atom, we can see in this text the affirmation
of the essential divinity of man and of man's power to evoke it
to his aid.

Finally, let us note that this body of ours, which we so desecrate,
is the Temple of the Holy Ghost; and that we err greatly if we
regard it as hopelessly corrupt, instead of looking forward to
the ideal of being one day able so to cleanse that Temple that
it may be a worthy shrine of its God.

Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil. -- Matthew, iv, 1

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves
before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. -- Job,
i, 6

Belief in his Satanic Majesty was very real and strong in bygone
centuries; and though it still persists among some sects, it has
much weakened in the succeeding years, while to many it has become
little more than a jest. The word is used in the Bible in different
senses. In the New Testament it often means merely an evil spirit
of some kind, such as those which obsessed maniacs and epileptics.
But more often it applies to an evil personal deity, the adversary
of God, and the adversary of man because he seeks to seduce man
from God. There can be no doubt that belief in such an evil Power
was strong in the atmosphere wherein the New Testament books were
compiled. In those passages which treat of the temptation of Jesus,
the devil appears as an agent commissioned by God to test a candidate
for high initiation; he offers Jesus all the riches and powers
of earth on condition of being worshipped, but Jesus declares
himself to be already in command of these things by virtue of
his own divinity, and the devil retires defeated. In the story
of Job, Satan is actually one of the sons of God, sent by God
for the purpose of testing Job.

Both the Hebrew Satan and the Greek Diabolos
(the origin of our word devil) mean 'adversary'; and
this meaning gives the key to the real meaning of the words. The
devil was said in theology to have been a rebellious angel, who
was cast out of heaven and thereupon became God's adversary, striving
to undo God's work and destroy man; in which work he was assisted
by a host of subordinates -- "the Devil and all his angels."
This is a perverted allegory. As Theosophy teaches -- in this
collecting the sense of many ancient teachings -- there was an
epoch in the drama of evolution when certain divine powers left
their high sphere in order to bring light to the lower kingdoms
of Nature. It was then that Man, hitherto innocent, knowing not
good and evil, passively obedient to heavenly law -- the 'mindless,'
as the teachings say -- became endowed with the Fire that aroused
within him his own hitherto latent divinity. Man became 'as the
Gods,' knowing good and evil, able to choose. This is what is
meant by the War in Heaven and the Fall of the Angels: in one
sense it is a rebellion and a fall; in another and better sense,
it is a sacrifice, a performance of the duty of love, whereby
Man was enlightened and saved. The story of Venus-Lucifer enshrines
this allegory, and so does that of Prometheus the Fire-Bringer.
Satan, then, was originally a divine being destined to carry light
and life to the nether worlds. He stands for the gift of free
will and self-conscious mind to Man; a power which at once seduces
and uplifts Man. For with free will comes the power to go astray.
Satan is therefore Man's teacher, even as he is in the Book of
Job. (It may here be noted that the Bible gives no authority for
supposing that it was the Devil who tempted Man in the Garden
of Eden; it was the Serpent. But the idea is the same.)

The perversion of this sublime teaching is the cardinal sin of
our theological system, a constant theme of H. P. Blavatsky. The
human intelligence has been converted into an enemy, and Man has
been set at variance with himself. This has resulted in false
asceticism and mortification of the flesh, whereas Man should
master the powers of his lower nature, not try to destroy them.

It remains to be added that, just as divine powers were personified
in a monotheistic anthropomorphic God, so it became necessary
to personify the remaining powers of Nature into a personal deity
-- his Satanic Majesty. Though this idea may have been derived
to some extent from Persian dualism, in Ormazd and Ahriman, yet
it differs essentially therefrom; for Ormazd and Ahriman were
twin creative powers from the beginning, whereas the theological
Satan is simply a rebel, inferior to God and destined to be conquered
ultimately by God. The Devil may well stand for corrupt human
nature, the alliance between intelligence and passion, which is
capable of generating something very like an independent being
inhabiting the temple of the body and desecrating it. It may also
stand for evil influences from the astral light, born of the corrupt
thoughts and lusts of men, which can obsess us if we give them
access. As a good rule of conduct, the old biblical adage holds
good in any case: "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from
you."

And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the
high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. --
Genesis, vii, 19

Bible readers must either ignore and reject actual knowledge and
indisputable evidence, or else admit that the Flood story is of
far greater antiquity than the Biblical account and is universal,
being found in every part of the earth and among all peoples,
East and West, North and South. The Chaldean account is older
than the Hebrew, and the Sumerian version is older still; India,
China, and other Asiatic countries furnish their versions. In
the West, we have Prescott's account of the surprise of the Jesuit
missionaries on finding that the natives already had the story.
It occurs in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the
Quiches. Daniel Brinton, in his Myths of the New World,
has collected an immense number of flood stories among the ancient
American tribes, North, Central, and Southern. The story is found
among the ancient Scandinavians in the North and the Polynesian
peoples in the South; and among African tribes, such as the Masai
of East Africa. No theory of the spreading of Bible teaching could
explain such universal diffusion, such great antiquity. Another
theory, still more strained, holds that all races of men, at certain
stages of their evolution, and in the same circumstances, will
invent the same myths. But even if this were true as to the broad
outlines, it could never explain the details. It is a fact that,
besides the story of a great flood, and of an ark which saves
a few people, there are also particulars such as the sending forth
of birds from the ark, and its final resting on a mountain. Such
exactitude in the similarity could never be explained by the theory
of diffusion or by the other theory mentioned; to say nothing
of the fact that either theory would explain a good deal more
than it was meant to explain; for why should there be such a similarity
in the creation and flood stories and yet such differences in
other respects?

It may be thought that all these stories preserve traditions of
an actual deluge; and geology shows that such a deluge must actually
have occurred, and its date is roughly fixed by the usual stratigraphical
criteria and by calculations respecting the Glacial Epoch. It
is certainly true that the stories do refer to an actual flood,
but this is not the entire meaning. The story is evidently an
allegory. In all its versions we find that the race of men had
become so corrupt that it was necessary to destroy it; there is
always a Noah, a righteous man who with his family is to be saved;
an ark is built, and animals and the products of the earth taken
in; birds are sent forth, the waters subside, and the ark rests
on a mountain.

It may be asked how a story can be at once a historical record
and an allegory conveying a figurative meaning. This arises from
the universal analogy or correspondence between the workings of
Nature on all planes; so that what happens in the affairs of man
happens also in the terrestrial world. The history of man, as
told in the Secret Doctrine, shows a succession of great races,
called Root-Races to distinguish them from the minor division
or sub-races; and the change from one Root-Race to the next is
marked by great cataclysms in the earth's surface, the earth undergoing
its evolution pari passu with the beings upon it. The
evidences of these cataclysms are preserved in the geological
record, where major unconformities mark the change into a new
system of strata. It is at such times that the remnants of the
earlier Race are destroyed, and seeds preserved to serve
as generators of the Race that is to come. The story of Deucalion
and Pyrrha shows the same thing: when Zeus resolved to destroy
the degenerate race of men, Deucalion and Pyrrha, on account of
their piety, were the only ones saved. A ship is built, in which
they float during a flood. Afterwards they start a new race by
throwing behind them stones, which become men and women. Xisuthrus,
the Chaldean Noah, has similar experiences, but is nearer akin
to the biblical narrative.

The Ark is a symbol which has a wider meaning than that which
relates merely to the preservation of the seed of a new race:
it symbolizes the preservation of seed in general, and hence is
an emblem of rebirth. Nothing is destroyed utterly or finally;
death is ever the precursor of rebirth. The death of a man means
but the dissolution of his temporary instruments or vestures;
but the essence of the man is preserved to be the seed of a future
re-creation of similar vestures for the next succeeding life on
earth.

If anyone should think that this explanation of the universal
story of the deluge and ark is far-fetched, we should be glad
to hear any other explanation that may be offered. And it must
be remembered that the flood story is only a single instance of
the universal diffusion of myths; for we find also similar accounts
of the creation of the world, the creation of beasts and man,
the fall of man; and this is not to mention the whole body of
mythology, with its almost identical features all over the world,
for which scholars have devised the solar myth theory, as though
ancient races amused themselves with devising poetical accounts
of the succession of the seasons and the course of the sun and
moon.

The only rational explanation is that these stories form the symbolical
record of the ancient Secret Doctrine, which was enshrined in
this form by wise men, for its preservation during dark ages;
and the key to which is available for those sufficiently interested
to study the pages of H. P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine.
As said above, owing to the universal correspondences and the
analogy of all things in Nature, every such myth has several meanings;
and the flood story, of which we find in our Bible a Hebrew-Chaldean
version, records the disappearance of the continent of Atlantis,
with the degenerate remains of its population, who were destroyed
because of their corruption; and the preservation of the human
seed for the founding of the next coming (or Fifth) Root-Race
of humanity. But the legend at the same time signifies the general
law of cycles and rebirth. The word 'ark' is akin to the Chaldean
argha, meaning the womb of Nature, the crescent moon,
and a cup; and it is the receptacle wherein are preserved the
seeds for a new birth. Death means rebirth, and destruction means
renewal. These processes are everywhere observable in Nature;
but scholarship, with an inverted logic, has supposed that their
correspondences in human life are merely poetical analogies; whereas
the truth is that physical Nature but repeats outwardly the laws
and workings of interior nature. The human race is perpetually
renewed; for each human individual is in his essence an undying
Self, preserved perpetually through manifold successive changes
of his outer vestures; and men, races, and worlds, eternal in
their essence, are, as to their outer form, perpetually passing
away and reappearing in the cycles of rebirth.